UAlbany Showcase 2026

Thank you to all who attended and participated!

The University at Albany held its fourth annual Showcase Day, which celebrates academic excellence, on Thursday, April 30, 2026.

The day-long event featured poster fairs, performances, discussions, demonstrations and exhibitions that reflected new and original exploration of topics in STEM, arts and humanities, social sciences and the professions.

More than 2,600 students, supported by more than 400 faculty advisors, took part in over 1,700 presentations — sharing their research, academic work, experiential learning and creative activities with their peers, instructors and other attendees.

UAlbany students, faculty and staff, as well as prospective students, donors, sponsors, legislators, community leaders, institutional partners, and more than 200 middle and high school students from nine schools all attended Showcase.

We hope to see you next year on Wednesday, April 28, 2027, for Showcase 2027. Save the date!

Student Awards

Video Series

Student Spotlight

See more photos from Showcase 2026.

Showcase 2026 Student Awards & Honors

awards

Showcase Partner Awards

All students presenting a research poster as an individual were eligible to win one of eight Showcase Partner Awards.

Student presenters were nominated by their school or college’s Showcase Liaison, and then each nominated presentation was judged by faculty from the student’s school or college.

The winning students were each awarded $250. Thank you to our generous Showcase partners!

Regeneron Partner Award

Raneem Afifi
Showcase Presentation: Film: Gender Studies is Burning
Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, College of Arts & Sciences

Delta Dental Partner Award

Ky Krause
Showcase Presentation: Learning Under Watch: AI Surveillance, Student Autonomy, and the Politics of Educational Contro
Department of English, College of Arts & Sciences

Fastenal Partner Award

David Finch
Showcase Presentation: On-field games for the Tri-City Valley Cats
Department of Information Sciences and Technology, College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security & Cybersecurity

CDTA Partner Award

Gabriella Federighi
Showcase Presentation: YouTube & True Crime: The Ethical Concerns in Independent Journalism
School of Criminal Justice, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy

Fenimore Partner Award

Jaime Gahtah
Showcase Presentation: The portrayal of female characters in children's stories can reinforce gender role stereotypes
Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, School of Education

Global Foundries Partner Award

Irien Akter
Showcase Presentation: Forecasting “Neg Storms” Time – Aware Modeling of Toxic Situations in Social Media.
Department of Computer Science, College of Nanotechnology, Science, and Engineering

Albany Med Partner Award

Natalie Metz
Showcase Presentation: Safer Smoking Initiatives and Hepatitis C Elimination: A System Dynamics Perspective for New York State.
Massry School of Business

EY Partner Award

Leo Meurs
Showcase Presentation: Capturing Team Meeting Dynamics with Microphone Arrays and Automated Speech-to-Text Systems
Massry School of Business

University Libraries Awards

Undergraduate Research Award

This award honors students who have demonstrated excellence and innovation as part of an original course-related research project that utilizes library resources.

2026 Winners:

Kylieann Krause
Showcase Presentation: Poe to Peele: The Reflection of Cultural Anxieties within Horror’s Architecture
Eliza Walker
Showcase Presentation: Nothing Dies that Memory Rocks to Sleep: The Redefinition of Southern Womanhood in Preserving the Lost Cause
Navid Khosrojerdi & Harshini Ponnam
Showcase Presentation: Inclusion & Belonging Amongst International Students

Student Service Excellence Award

This award honors student library employees who have contributed outstandingly to the University Libraries, while maintaining a solid academic record.

2026 Winners:

Otega Uwode
Showcase Presentation: It's Not Just a Song: A Critical Interrogation of Black Humiliation Racial Conditioning-Propaganda in the Coercive Formula of Black Songs
Ethan Zenteno
Showcase Presentation: Social Engineering via Predatory Ad Space Vending, and the Rise of AI Scam Agents

Pritchard Award

This award honors faculty/student collaborators who have completed a project that leads to an improvement in the services of the University Libraries and makes a positive contribution to the profession of librarianship.

2026 Winners:

David Finch
Showcase Presentation: On-field games for the Tri-City Valley Cats
Ryan Clow
Showcase Presentation: Researching and Designing Makerspaces

Alice Hastings Murphy Scholarship

This award honors student library employees and full-time library staff members who wish to become librarians.

2026 Winner:

Aaron Cohen

College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security & Cybersecurity Awards

Game Design & Development Award

Aidan Doherty & Giuseppe Nicastri
Showcase Presentation: On-field games for the Tri-City Valley Cats
Department of Information Sciences and Technology

College of Integrated Health Sciences Awards

Biomedical Science Excellence in Scholarship

Winner:

Pattani Konpetch
Showcase Presentation: Cyro-ET Reveals Intraflagellar Transport Trains Moving Along Multiple Microtubules in Mammalian Primary Cilia
Department of Biomedical Sciences

Honorable Mentions:

Kaas Sjostrom
Showcase Presentation: Contact-Dependent Regulation of ESX secretion systems by EspM in Mycobacterium smegmatis
Department of Biomedical Sciences
Sean Jones
Showcase Presentation: Characterization of the SigD regulon and its role in susceptibility to hydrophobic antibiotics in Mycobacterium abscessus
Department of Biomedical Sciences

Environmental Health Science Excellence in Scholarship

Winner:

Randy Tangang
Showcase Presentation: Individual, Joint and Interactive of Multiple Meteorological Factors during Cold Weather on Hospital Admissions for Autoimmune Diseases
Department of Environmental Health Sciences

Honorable Mentions:

Ryan Gainor
Showcase Presentation: A liquid chromatography - tandem mass spectrometry method for quantifying oxidative stress, nitrative stress, metabolic, and inflammatory biomarkers in serum: comparisons to urine
Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Junrong Ma
Showcase Presentation: Joint and Interaction Effects of Multiple Meteorological Factors on Cardiovascular Risk in Older Adults
Department of Environmental Health Sciences

Epidemiology & Biostatistics Excellence in Scholarship

Winners:

Asmaa Ahmad
Showcase Presentation: A Structure-Preserving Assessment of VBPBB for Time Series Imputation Under Periodic Trends, Noise, and Missingness Mechanisms
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Suruchi Shahi
Showcase Presentation: Gestational Age and Breastfeeding Initiation Among US Mothers: Evidence from the 2022-2023 National Survey of Family Growth
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Honorable Mentions:

Yineng Chen
Showcase Presentation: Detecting Multiple Periodic Patterns in Ischemic Heart Disease Using the Variable Multiple Bandpass Periodic Block Bootstrap
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Allison Klein
Showcase Presentation: Modernization of the NYS Perinatal ZIP Code Data Profiles Dashboard
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Health Policy Management Excellence in Scholarship

Winners:

Nagifa "Gigi" Tabassum
Showcase Presentation: Addressing Health Literacy Challenges and Barriers to Access Healthcare Through Outreach and Education at RISSE
Keshanti Bruce
Showcase Presentation: Healthy Families New York Reflective Group Consultation Evaluation
Department of Health Policy, Management and Behavior

Honorable Mentions:

Esther Richter
Showcase Presentation: Supporting the Internal New York State Department of Health, Health Equity and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee's Efforts
Department of Health Policy, Management and Behavior
Harpreet Kaur
Showcase Presentation: Artificial Intelligence Literacy Among Nursing Workforce and Patient Safety
Department of Health Policy, Management and Behavior

Social Welfare Excellence in Scholarship

Winners:

Hana Kim
Showcase Presentation: From Coverage to Care: Structural Vulnerability across HCBS Access Pathways among Older Immigrants in New York
School of Social Welfare
Kamylle Blackwell-Clark
Showcase Presentation: Black Maternal Mortality and Community Birthwork
School of Social Welfare

Honorable Mentions:

Antonio Regulier
Showcase Presentation: The Forgotten Population of Dually Diagnosed Black Men: A Critical Race Theory Analysis of Title 42 The Public Health and Welfare Law
School of Social Welfare
Kaiya Leveroni
Showcase Presentation: Community, Cancer, Motherhood: Examining the Impact of Psychosocial Support
School of Social Welfare

Undergraduates Excellence in Scholarship

Winners:

Alina Khan & Zara Syed
Showcase Presentation: Translation in Health

Honorable Mention:

Sethri Asamoah-Nani
Showcase Presentation: Cloning of Placenta-Associated Transcripts LCMT1, LCTM1-AS2 and LCMTA-AS2-201

"This is My Showcase" Video Series

Experience Showcase 2026 through the eyes of nine current UAlbany students.

videos

Ira Marcks

Showcase Presentation: MFA Thesis Exhibition - Art and Art History

Academic Program: MFA in Studio Art

Maureen Mbanga

Showcase Presentation: Smart Numbers: The Rise of AI in Accounting and Finance

Academic Program: BS in Accounting

Emmanuel Nana Arko

Showcase Presentation: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Maternal Mortality in the United States, 2018–2023 EPI 553

Academic Program: DrPH in Public Health

Giuseppe Nicastri

Showcase Presentations:

How emergency deepfake voice scam cases used on elderly people
Are video games a healthy coping mechanism for college students?
Games For Love Internship experience

Academic Program: BS in Informatics

Najani Johnson

Showcase Presentations:

CREATE Team 2 - Engineering solutions for people living with disabilities
Machine Learning for Semiconductor Wafer Defect Pattern Classification
AccessAble

Academic Program: BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sanad Sahawneh

Showcase Presentations:

Predicting Marathon Race Performance Using Machine Learning
Green Mountain Semiconductor – Integration of AI Hardware for Space Applications
RF Exposure

Academic Program: BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sky Eigen

Showcase Presentation: ITECA Hudson Mohawk Climate Corps & Intergenerational Community Advisory Council

Academic Program: MS in Biodiversity, Conservation, and Policy

Gabriella Federighi

Showcase Presentation: YouTube & True Crime: The Ethical Concerns in Independent Journalism

Academic Program: BA in Sociology and BA in Criminal Justice

Emma Clements

Showcase Presentations

Wwise Demonstration
Krylov State Complexity and Information Geometry in Qubit Dynamics
Symphonic Band

Academic Program: BS in Physics

Student Spotlight

spotlight

Celebrating Student Research and Creativity at Showcase 2026

May 4, 2026

Showcase 2026 included more than 1,700 presentations from over 2,600 students, supported by more than 400 faculty advisors.

Showcase 2026: Art Student Explores Hidden Microbial Life in Historic Paintings

April 28, 2026

This year, one Showcase project invites us to look closer at paintings, close enough to glimpse a hidden, living world beneath the surface.

Showcase 2026: Tracking Algal Blooms Through Lake Mud

April 24, 2026

Katelyn Jacques, a sophomore environmental studies major, is leading a project exploring the history of algal blooms at Long Pond in Grafton Lakes State Park. Her work will be on display at Showcase 2026.

Showcase 2026: Exploring Effects of Social Media on Health Among LGBTQ+ Teens

April 22, 2026

Clinical Psychology PhD student Jason Choi studies the effects of social media on mental health as a research Fellow at UAlbany’s Center for the Elimination of Health Disparities.

Shine Bright Like a Nanoparticle: Chemistry Senior Talks Rapid Pathogen Detection

April 22, 2026

Emmett Hanson spent the past several years developing innovative biosensing technologies in the Yigit Lab at the RNA Institute. His work on rapid pathogen detection resulted in two peer-reviewed publications and a PhD position at Stanford.

Showcase 2026: UAlbany Student Develops App to Help You Avoid Pollution Hot Spots

April 21, 2026

UAlbany PhD student Md. Reazul Islam developed an app that uses artificial intelligence and a network of smart devices to monitor, predict and map pollution levels, alerting users in real time to areas with hazardous air quality that could damage their health and suggesting alternate routes.

Showcase 2026: The Devilish and Feminist Women of Cult Classic Sci-Fi Films

April 20, 2026

Senior anthropology major Anna Souls is bringing supernatural elements to Showcase Day 2026 with a poster examining how science fiction films portray gender and women's experiences.

Showcase 2026: Type 1 Diabetes and Social Work

April 16, 2026

Erin Forkin, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in her senior year of high school, is conducting research on the impact school social workers can have on adolescents as they navigate a diabetes diagnosis.

Showcase 2026: Cyber Student Explores Smartwatch Security Risks

April 15, 2026

Stephen Gravereaux, a senior cybersecurity major at the University at Albany, has spent the last year studying smartwatch security vulnerabilities and exploring innovative methods to reduce risk for users.

Showcase 2026: Grad Student Rethinks Connection Through Third Spaces

March 31, 2026

University at Albany graduate student Pallav Savaliya has identified a shortage of third spaces in urban life across the United States, particularly for young people.

Showcase 2026: Nanotech Student Finds Rhythm in Research

March 23, 2026

UAlbany junior Harry Weinstein is already presenting his research on a global stage, sharing work on next-generation chip-making materials at a leading international conference. He will present that work again at Showcase on April 30.

Showcase 2026: Olzak Blends Ancient Craft and Modern Art

March 10, 2026

UAlbany student Joel Olzak's work, along with that of other graduating MFA students, will be on display during Showcase 2026, the University at Albany’s annual celebration of student research, scholarship and creative activity.